


A Photo Lasts Longer

by Living_Free



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, Domestic, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Humor, ITS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, M/M, Photographer!Tim, Photography, Sibling Bonding, batbros, batfamily, cass bring wise, dick being cutesy, he hates the bourgeois, jason being savage af, tim and dami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 01:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13202841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Free/pseuds/Living_Free
Summary: What starts out as your regular spying session on Tim turns out to be so much more for Damian.With a little guidance, a little espionage, and a lot of love, these two brothers turn their relationship around - and just in time for Christmas.And Jason’s plans to bring down the bourgeois with savage AF burns may just work.





	A Photo Lasts Longer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marudny_Robot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marudny_Robot/gifts).



For [Marudny_Robot](https://marudny-robot.tumblr.com), and the prompt - Characters sharing a hobby/doing something only together as their version of ‘bonding’. Merry Christmas, chum.

Love,

Living_Free ([kindaangelic](http://kindaangelic.tumblr.com))

* * *

 

Damian Wayne was a man on a mission, and that mission was to utterly violate Tim Drake’s privacy.

Damian sprung around the corner of the hall, dodged a trip wire, rolled over to the wall, and somersaulted over to Tim’s bedroom door. He picked the lock expertly and snuck inside, closing the door gently behind him as he entered Drake’s sanctum sanctorum.

With a frog-like grin, Damian went over to the closet and opened it to find a safe with an eight character word lock. He attached his digital code breaker (one of Drake’s own, pilfered from his utility belt), and set the machine to work, watching closely as the code breaker cycled through combinations of letters.

K...O...N...S...B...U...T...T

Damian snorted derisively as the door swung open, silently criticizing Drake’s base desires. He let out a triumphant squeak as he laid his tiny mitts on the mother lode, sheafs of pictures that Drake had kept hidden away. Who knew what these contained? Oh, the power he would have over Drake with these deep, dark, pictures of...

Grayson?

There were heaps upon heaps of pictures of Dick in various poses. Well, pictures were an understatement. These were precious, beautiful, memories of Drake’s first brother, the first man to love Drake, and whom Drake loved back.

There was one of Dick reclining on the sofa, looking every bit like a Greek god, effortlessly hanging off of the edge of the cushion. Another of Dick, this time in the middle of a trapeze jump. It took Damian’s breath away, the skill that it must have taken to snap the picture at exactly the right moment. Not a second too soon, or too late. Just right, with the lighting casting a soft silhouette around Grayson’s body, caught in time with a grin on his face.

There were pictures of Todd, and he was...cool. Staring out of the window with a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, his eyes half lidded, he had the potential to be every bit the seductress that Grayson was. In another, Todd was cooking, the steam from the pots making his hair frizz just slightly. Pennyworth was also in the shot, the paragon of domestic proprietary, looking proudly and fondly at Jason’s work, while further in the background was Father, who was clearly struggling with the toaster. It was a story in a snapshot.

The next sheaf of pictures were of Cassandra and Fatgirl. It had never quite occurred to Damian to think that his sister was beautiful, because why would he, girls were strange and had two udders, but if ever he needed proof of it, this was it. Somehow, Drake’s pictures managed to capture her soft smile, her calm confidence, and a certain languidity in her poses, which carefully masked her assassin reflexes.

Drake’s skill with the camera somehow even managed to make Fatgirl look pleasant. Not as beautiful as Cassandra by any means, but bearable. In one picture, Stephanie was in a very, very, small sundress, twirling around like a ballerina in the yard, the sun reflecting off of her perfectly blonde hair. Damian remembered that day, because when Bruce saw her, he had gone red in the face and had yelled for ten minutes to put on “some proper clothes, Stephanie, we don’t love in Amsterdam for God’s sake”. And...ah, yes, there was a picture of Father, in the middle of said yelling. Stephanie was in the frame as well, caught rolling her eyes at Bruce for eternity now.

  
“That is my favorite.”

Damian whirled around in shock, and dropped the photo. “Cain,” he gasped raggedly, and paused to gather his wits. “Good sneaking, I didn’t hear you.”

“Thanks,” Cass beamed. “That’s my favorite picture,” she said again, pointing to the photo of Bruce screaming. “Bruce is usually...serious. I like him...smiling. And angry. And laughing.”

“Drake appears to have some talent in this art form,” Damian said, not quite grudgingly.

“Tim is very talented,” Cassandra agreed. “He likes art. He is good at making things pretty. Soft. So much is hard, but Tim...can find...the...soft. It’s good.”

It was good, Damian thought. It was very, very, good.

Damnation. He had just admired Drake!

“It is Christmas,” Cassandra continued pointedly.

“It is,” Damian concurred.

“You have to give Timmy a present.”

“I brought him a gift already,” Damian said, thinking guiltily of the used sock languishing in his closet that had been stuffed into a box and tied with some yarn.

“A good gift,” Cassandra said sternly.

Damian grumbled and turned away, putting away the pictures and wiping away any evidence of his crime of invading Tim’s room. All the while, his mind was working furiously until he hit upon a thought. “There are no pictures of me,” he observed.

“Tim...stopped,” Cassandra said sadly.

A horrible thought occurred to Damian. “Because of me?” Was he the cause of stopping Drake’s photography? Had his presence caused Drake to stop making this beautiful art?

Cass looked horrified at the slight wobble in Damian’s voice. She squished Damian’s cheeks in her hands and shook her head. “No, no. After...Bruce,” she said. “Tim was so sad. With Dick. And Robin. He stopped seeing the soft. Everything was hard,” she sighed. “There was no time for Timmy. Only Red Robin. Only Mr. Wayne.”

Damian nodded and slunk out of the room, all thoughts of the smelly sock banished from his mind.

============

“Timmy, you haven’t opened Dami’s gift!”

Tim shot a dubious look at the long parcel beneath the tree. “Um, Dick...”

“Yeah, open it, Timmy,” Jason said mockingly. “Fucking ow,” he swore as Bruce dabbed his cut with antiseptic solution. “Whose bright idea was it to have post patrol Christmas?”

“Mine,” Bruce rumbled. “Crime doesn’t stop for holiday cheer.”

“But we’re all here now, and there are presents!” Dick trilled. “Timmy, open your present!”

Tim looked unsurely at Damian, who was sat on Dick’s lap, looking like a despotic ruler on his throne, and opened the box to reveal...

“Um.”

“They are studio lights, Drake,” Damian said, rolling his eyes. “Professionals use them during photo shoots.”

For a solid minute, Tim did not move or speak, the only sound in the cave coming from Jason swearing mildly as Bruce wrestled with him to bandage his wounds. Finally, Tim straightened from his pose with the lights.

“Thanks, Damian,” he said quietly, struggling to hide his blush.

“Tt. Put them to good use, Drake.”

“You’re so compassionate, Dami!” Dick cooed, covering Damian in little butterfly kisses. “I’m so proud of your emotional intelligence!”

Damian grinned, looking like a very tiny Mr. Burns who had just signed Homer Simpson’s pink slip, and settled into Dick’s stomach while the rest of the family looked mildly nonplussed. Cassandra came forward and placed a small kiss on Damian’s cheek.

“Very good, little brother.”

Damian’s smile was positively toad-like in that it stretched his face to inhuman lengths.

“I’m proud of you, Damian,” Bruce whispered, scooping him out of Dick’s lap. “You showed a lot of maturity and insight for your brother. Tim,” Bruce said, addressing the still stunned boy, “I trust you’ll make good use of Damian’s gift?”

For a split second, a smile flickered across Tim’s perpetually tired face. “I will, Bruce,” he promised. “I will.”

===========

“Mr. Wayne, you must be so proud,” Linda McSnooty trilled, gripping Bruce’s arm in an eye watering grip. But Bruce was the Batman, and Batman did not cringe in the face of superficial, rich, ladies.

“I am,” Bruce confirmed. “I’m so glad that Tim was chosen to present his photos for the exhibit.”

“And he applied under a pseudonym!” Linda gasped. “How bizarre! It’s as though he wanted to get by on merit alone! The very idea is just so...foreign.”

“Yeah, imagine having talent that you don’t need daddy’s name to showcase,” Jason sad, putting his hand to his chest dramatically. “I can’t begin to conceive of it!”

Linda fixed Jason with a stern look. “Bruce, darling, who is this impudent little hooligan!?”

“I’m the bodyguard,” Jason replied easily. “The name’s Hooligan. Jason Hooligan. And frankly my dear, I don’t give a shit.”

“Oh my!”

Bruce didn’t have time to quell Mrs. McSnooty’s hysterics before Dick came sailing through the crowd and started to drag Bruce away. “Come on, Bruce, Jay, they’re going to introduce Timmy!”

Bruce found himself being yanked wantonly through the crowd by Dick, who had Jason in his other hand. How a lean acrobat who was on the smallish side managed to drag two men who had forty pounds of muscle on him was beyond Bruce. They came to a halt beside Damian, who had secured seats in the front row and was telling an amused Commissioner Gordon that it was he who had inspired Tim to take up photography again.

“...had it not been for my inspired gift, Drake might never have rediscovered his love for photography again. He would have languished behind a corporate title forevermore, his soul whittled away by the bureaucratic codswollop of business.”

For a brief moment, Bruce had a glimpse of the future, where Damian was majoring in Fine Arts. It was too horrible to think of.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the boy of the hour, Mr. Timothy Drake-Wayne!” The announcer boomed, and Tim shuffled onto the stage, blushing furiously amidst thunderous applause.

“Hi, I’m Tim,” he blurted out inelegantly. “I’d like to present my photographic collection tonight. It’s called The Gods of Olympus. The first picture is called _Hades and Persephone_.”

Tim whipped off the covering to awed gasps from the crowd and a horrified, muted, shriek from Bruce.

It was a picture of Bruce and Dick. Bruce was sitting by the fireplace, half covered in shadow, looking broodingly into the fire. Dick sat beside him on the armchair, half draped over Bruce, animatedly talking and gesturing. The firelight which had seemed to miss Bruce completely bathed Dick in its soft glow, highlighting his sharp features, and lighting up his mirthful eyes.

“Ooh, Timmy!” Dick cried before dissolving into happy sobs.

“The next one is titled _Zeus Holding Court_ ,” Tim went on, unveiling a picture of Alfred standing patronizingly over Bruce, who was slumped into the armchair, looking cowed. There was a window directly behind Alfred, granting him a strong aura, while Bruce sulked in the darkness again.

“Oh, such wit!” Jason trilled, fanning himself dramatically, and Alfred smiled softly.

“This one is titled _Aphrodite’s Influence_.”

The picture was of Cassandra, who was seated regally, reclining in Jason’s lap while he painted her toenails. Stephanie sat on the floor, painting Cass’ fingernails.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean!?” Jason hissed.

“Quiet, nail slave,” Cass murmured playfully.

“Next is the _Virgin Huntress_ ,” Tim continued. That was a picture of Stephanie stalking Jason with a nerf gun, taking deliberate aim at his posterior.

“Well, it’s half right,” Stephanie said, leering at a giggly Cass, and subsequently earned the ire of Cass’ collective brothers and her very, very, formidable father.

“You’re dead, Brown,” Jason growled.

“I have no fear,” Stephanie said smugly.

“Stephanie,” Bruce rumbled warningly.

“One fear,” Stephanie corrected herself.

“And this is called _Hestia’s Joy_.”

The audience took a collective breath at the last picture. It was a breathtaking shot of Damian sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace and poking the fire. Titus was curled up beside him, dozing contentedly, while Alfred the cat was slinking towards Jason who was standing a little ways away, claws out, ready to do the man a mischief.

Apart from Jason, who was engrossed in a book, was Dick, who was once again sitting next to Bruce and yammering happily on about something or the other while the patriarch tried his level best to maintain a stern expression, but looked to be falling into a dopey smile.

Alfred the Butler was smiling sleepily in an armchair, while Cassandra gave him a scalp massage and Stephanie was giving him a manicure with Alfred’s specifications of “clear polish only, please, Miss Stephanie, pops of color would look most ungainly on an old biddy like me.”

It was obvious, though, that Damian was the focus of the picture, bringing the family together and taking care of the animals, lighting the hearth and keeping his family warm and happy on a forbiddingly cold winter’s day.

In the audience, Damian felt his heart leap and a strange tightness grip his throat and threaten to suffocate him. He hadn’t realized that Drake was taking the picture.

“Aren’t you glad that you were so thoughtful, Dami?” Dick cooed. “A little kindness goes a long way.”

Damian looked at Drake onstage, the photographer himself lost in his masterpiece. The control over Tim’s face was broken, and he sported a very small smile that brought out his youth. For the first time, he looked like he could be Damian’s brother, and not just Drake. Damian could be kind to this brother. He could be good to this brother.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “It truly does.”


End file.
